


Child's Prayer

by bookish_cupcake



Series: One by One [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Dreaming, Gen, kid!Natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookish_cupcake/pseuds/bookish_cupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once in a great, blissful while, the infamous Black Widow won't dream of reality. She's a little girl again, before warped and contorted, and a kind man wants nothing more than to help her. It's a dream, nothing more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child's Prayer

She dreams now and then. When she does, flashes of dead men plague her. Clint makes his way in there occasionally. He has a habit of screwing with her mind even when she's not awake. Once in a great, blissful while, she won't dream of reality.

She's a girl again, before the Red Room. Or Natasha is what she's imagined herself to be like. Everything is so tall, looming, and she's just a scrawny girl.

There's a man, old and sad. He's wearing a funny suit with funny shoes and a funny tie. He speaks funny. He sounds Russian, but she simply knows his language can't be. She can't explain it properly, but tries anyways. The funny man laughs.

She thinks his laughter to be a beautiful sound, and it reminds her of the stories Anichka used to tell her, the kind with angels.

He sits with her by the river. He drapes his long coat around her tiny frame, and she wonders how he's not freezing. He keeps saying sorry. So, so sorry. He wants to take her away from this, but he can't. She's important, he says, and can't risk altering anything. He promises to one day show her the stars.

And she wants to giggle and call him silly because the stars are already up above them.

No, no, he says. He means to travel through the cosmos, to truly  _see_ them. To land on them. To experience a new life.

She wouldn't mind a new life. She tells him this. Her village is so, so cold. People starve and fight and she only watches.

He lets her keep the jacket, and inside the pockets she finds bread.

Natasha wakes up, and allows herself to gaze out the window to the night sky.

 _This_ is a child's prayer, a desire for a fairy tale to come true.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few threads of ideas in mind for a possible sequel. Thank you for reading :)


End file.
